The Three Brides

most beautiful and gorgeous, in a robe of some astonishing sheeny sky-blue, edged with paly gold, while on her head was a coronal of sapphire and gold, with a marvellous little plume. The cost must have been enormous, and her delicate and spirituelle beauty was shown to the greatest advantage; but as the audience was far too scanty to be worth beginning upon, Cecil, with a sigh at the folly of maternal idolatry, went to hunt up her ladies from gazing at the babyish amusements of their offspring; and Miss Moy, in spite of her remonstrance, jumped up to follow her; while Mrs. Duncombe, the only good mother in this new sense, remained, keeping guard lest curiosity, and the echo of piano music, which now began to be heard, should attract away any more of the ladies.

Cecil was by no means prepared for the scene. The drawing-room was crowded-chiefly indeed with ladies and children, but there was a fair sprinkling of gentlemen-and all had their faces turned towards the great glass doors opening into the conservatory, which was brilliantly lighted and echoing with music and laughter. Cecil tried to summon some of the ladies of her own inviting, announcing that Mrs. Tallboys was arrived; but this appeared to have no effect. 'Yes, thank you,' was all she heard. Penetrating a little farther, 'Mrs. Tallboys is ready.' 'Thank you, I'll come; but my little people are so anxious to have me with them.'-'Mrs. Tallboys is waiting!' to the next; who really did not hear, but only responded, 'Did you ever see anything more charming?'

By this time Cecil could see over the heads of the front rank of children. She hardly knew the conservatory. All the veteran camellia and orange-trees, and a good many bay and laurel boughs besides, were ranged along the central alley, gorgeous with fairy lamps and jewels, while strains of soft music proceeded from some unseen quarter. 'Very pretty!' said Cecil, hastily, trying another of her intended guests with her intelligence. 'Really-yes, presently, thank you,' was the absent answer. 'There is some delightful mystery in there.'

Cecil found her attempts were vain, and was next asked, as one of the household, what delicious secret was going on there; and as it hurt her feelings to be left out, she pressed into the conservatory, with some vague intention of ordering Anne, if not Rosamond, to release her grown-up audience, and confine their entertainment to the children; but she found herself at once caught by the hand by a turbaned figure like a prince in the Arabian Nights, who, with a low salaam, waved her on.

'No, thank you. I'm looking for-'

But retreat was impossible, for many were crowding up in eager curiosity; moreover, a muslin bandage descended-on her eyes. 'Don't!' she expostulated; 'I'm not at play-I'm-' but her words were lost.

'Hush! the Peri's cave is near, No one enters scatheless here; Lightly tread and lowly bend, Win the Peri for your friend,'

sung a voice to the mysterious piano accompaniment; and Cecil found both hands taken, and was forced to move on, as she guessed the length of the conservatory, amid sounds of suppressed laughter that exceedingly annoyed her, till there was a pause and repetition of the two last lines with an attempt to make her obey them. She was too impatient and angry to perceive that it would have been much better taste to enter into the humour of the thing; and she only said with all her peculiar cold petulance, just like sleet, 'Let me go, if you please; I am engaged. I am waited for.'

'Peri gracious, She's contumacious; Behold, every hair shall bristle When she hears the magic whistle!'

and a whistle, sharp, long, and loud, sounded behind her, amid peals of merriment. She turned sharply round, but still the whistle was behind her, and rang out again and again, till she was half deafened, and wholly irate; while the repetition of

'Bend, bend, lowly bend, Win the Peri for your friend,'

forced on her the conviction that on no other condition should she be set free, though the recognition of Terry's voice made the command doubly unpalatable, and as she made the stiffest and most reluctant of courtesies, a voice said,

'Homage done, you may be Of this merry company;'

and with a last blast of the whistle the bandage was removed, and she found herself in the midst of a half circle of laughing children and grown people; in front of her a large opening, like a cavern, hung with tiny lamps of various colours, in the midst of which stood the Peri, in a Persian pink robe, white turban, and wide white trousers, with two oriental genies attendant upon her.

A string was thrust into Cecil's hand, apparently fastened to her, and accounting for some sharp pulls she had felt during the whistling. She drew it in front in sharp haste, to be rid of the obnoxious instrument; but instead of a whistle, she found in her hand a little dust-pan and brush, fit for a baby-house, drawn through a ring, while the children eagerly cried, 'What have you got? What have you got?'

'Some nonsense. I do not approve of practical jokes,' began Cecil; but the song only replied,

'Away, away, In the cave no longer stay; Others come to share our play;'

and one of the genies drew her aside, while another blindfolded victim was being introduced with the same rites, only fare more willingly. The only way open to here was that which led to the window of the dining-room, where she found Anne with the children who had had their share, and were admiring their prizes. Anne tried to soothe her by saying, 'You see every one is served alike. They thought it would be newer than a tree.'

'Did you mean to give me this?' asked a little girl, in whose hands Cecil had thrust her dust-pan, without a glance at it.

'Oh the ring!' said Anne. 'You must keep that, Mrs. Poynsett thought you would like it. It is a gem-some Greek goddess, I think.'

'Is this her arrangement?' asked Cecil, pointing to the dust-pan.

'Oh no! she knew nothing about that, nor I; but you see every one has something droll. See what Mr. Bowater has!'

And Herbert Bowater showed that decidedly uncomplimentary penwiper, where the ass's head declares 'There are two of us;' while every child had some absurdity to show; and Miss Moy's shrieks of delight were already audible at a tortoise-shell pen-holder disguised as a hunting-whip.

'I must go to my friends,' said Cecil, vouchsafing no admiration of the ring, though she had seen enough to perceive that it was a beautifully engraved ruby; and she hurried back to the library, but only to find all her birds flown, and the room empty! Pursuing them to the drawing-room, she saw only the backs of a few, in the rearmost rank of the eager candidates for admission to the magic cave.

Lady Tyrrell alone saw her, and turned back from the eager multitude, to say in her low, modulated voice, 'Beaten, my dear. Able strategy on la belle mere's part.'

'Where's Mrs. Tallboys?'

'Don't you see her blue feather, eagerly expectant? Just after you were gone, Edith Bowater came in, and begged us to come and see the conservatory lighted up; and then came a rush of the Brenden children after their aunt, exclaiming wildly it was delicious- lights, and a fairy, and a secret, and every one got something, if they were ever so old. Of course, after that there was nothing but to follow the stream.'

'It is a regular plot for outwitting us! Rosamond is dressed up for the fairy. They are all in league.'

'Well, we must put a good face on it for the present,' said Lady Tyrrell. 'Don't on any account look as if you were not in perfect accordance. You can show your sentiments afterwards, you know.'

Cecil saw she must acquiesce, for Mrs. Tallboys was full in the midst. With an infinitely better grace than her hostess, she yielded herself to the sports, bowed charmingly to the Peri, whirled like a fairy at the whistling, and was rewarded with a little enamel padlock as a brooch, and two keys as ear-rings; indeed she professed, with evident sincerity, that she was delighted with these sports of the old country, and thought the two genies exquisite specimens of the fair, useless, gentle English male aristocracy.

Mrs. Duncombe, too, accepted the inevitable with considerable spirit and good-humour, though she had a little passage-at-arms with Julius; when showing him the ivory card-case that had fallen to her lot, she said, 'So this is the bribe! Society stops the mouth of truth.'

'That is as you choose to take it,' he said.

'Exactly. When we want to go deep into eternal verities you silence us with frivolous din and dainty playthings for fear of losing your slaves.'

'I don't grant that.'

'Then why hinder an earnest discussion by all this hubbub?'

'Because this was not the right place or time.'

'It never is the right time for the tyrants to let their slaves confer, or to hear home-truths.'

'On the contrary, my curiosity is excited. I want to hear Mrs. Tallboys' views.'